CONWY County Council has spent almost #10 million on taxis in the last five years.

And this astronomical figure does not include expenses or casual journeys - it’s purely cash used to fund taxi contracts for the education and social services departments.

In 2002/03, the authority spent #1,695,441, and #1,911,114 the following year. In 2004/05, the amount dropped to #1,895,895, before rising again to #2,109,613 in 2005/06, and #2,103,914 in the last 12 months.

The education department’s slice was around #1.92m last year. That means they alone spent an estimated #11,000 per school day, if you deduct holidays and weekends.

Clwyd West MP David Jones was shocked when the Weekly News told him the figures.

“I’m amazed,” said Mr Jones, who then searched for comparable results within Government departments.

“Every department in Whitehall combined only spent #3.7 million on taxis last year, and they are responsible for the entire country.

“The Department of Transport only spent #247,000 on taxis in 2006, that’s eight times less than Conwy County Council!”

“And this money was just on taxi contracts, not casual use of taxis or expenses, so the figures would have been a lot higher than this.

“Perhaps the council should look at a more cost effective way of ferrying people around, maybe their own fleet of minibuses and drivers? It would be a lot cheaper.”

Mr Jones pointed out that a lot of the money will be spent on driving children from remote areas to school, those who can’t get the bus or have access to a car.

“This is a terrific expenditure, especially with the possibility of libraries closing and the council trimming services elsewhere. Have they looked at this properly?” he added.

A portion of the money will have been spent on driving children to and from Ysgol-y-Gogarth in Llandudno, but Clwyd West AM Darren Millar says that would still not be enough to warrant such a large sum of money.

“These figures seem astonishing,” said Mr Millar. “For the education department to be paying almost #2m per year on taxi fares when they are also denying pupils free bus transport along potentially hazardous routes to school doesn’t seem fair.

“The fact the council spends 24% more on taxis now than it did five years ago shows that spending in this area is